matter: does this concept apply only to the tangible and weighty, or do all things visible, smellable, audible, and finally all of nature constitute material for investigation and correspondingly can everything be called material, even the human spirit, since this too serves the theory of cognition as material?

Thus, the distinguishing mark between the mechanical materialists of the past century and the social-democratic materialists who passed through the school of German idealists consists in the fact that the latter extended the limited concept of only tangible matter to all material things whatsoever.

One cannot raise any objection to the fact that extreme materialists distinguish the weighty or tangible from the smellable, from the audible, or finally from the realm of ideas. We can reproach them only for the fact that they abuse this distinction excessively, that they lose sight of what is akin and common in things or properties and distinguish weighty and tangible matter "metaphysically," or *toto caelo*, and do not perceive the significance of the general class that encompasses the opposites.

Modern natural science still stands in many respects entirely from the standpoint of the materialists of the past century. These materialists were general theorists, so to speak philosophers of natural science, insofar as it even now still confines its investigation to the mechanical, i.e., the concrete, tangible, and weighty. True, natural science began long ago to overcome this standpoint; already chemistry went beyond the bounds of mechanical limitation, and behold—new knowledge appeared concerning the transformation of the form of forces, concerning the transition of gravity into heat, electricity, etc. But natural science still remains limited. The investigation of the human spirit and all those relations which are produced by it in human life, i.e., political, juridical, economic and all other relations, natural science excludes from the sphere of its study, still remaining under the influence of the old prejudice that spirit is something metaphysical, a child of some other world.

Natural science deserves no reproach for its limitations not because it distinguishes mechanical, chemical, electrotechnical and other forms of knowledge, singling them out into separate domains, but because it exaggerates this division, loses sight of the connection between spirit and matter, and to this day has not been able to rid itself of "metaphysical" modes of thinking...

It is not different views on stars or animals, plants or stones that divide people into materialists and idealists; the determining moment is exclusively and solely the view on the relation between body and spirit.

The conviction of the complete erroneousness of German idealism, which did not cease to consider spirit a metaphysical first principle, which supposedly creates and produces tangible, visible, smellable and other matters, necessarily led to socialist materialism, which calls itself "socialist" because the socialists Marx and Engels were the first to establish clearly and precisely that the material and namely the economic relations of human society form the basis which ultimately conditions the entire superstructure of legal and political institutions, just as well as the religious, philosophical and other representations of each historical epoch. Instead of, as before, explaining man's being from his consciousness, now on the contrary consciousness is explained from being and chiefly from man's economic position, from the manner in which he obtains his bread.

Socialist materialism understands by "matter" not only the weighty and tangible, but all real being—everything that is contained in the universe, and indeed everything is contained in it, for all and the universe are only two names for one and the same thing; and socialist materialism wishes to encompass everything under one concept, one name, one class—it matters not whether this universal class is called reality, realness, nature, or matter.

We, the most recent materialists, do not adhere to that limited opinion that weighty and tangible matter is matter *par excellence*; we stand on the standpoint that the scent of flowers, sounds, and all odors—these too are matter. We do not regard forces as a mere appendage, as a pure predicate of substance, but regard tangible substance, tangible matter, as a "thing" which dominates all properties. We regard substance and forces democratically. Both have equal value for us; taken in isolation, they are nothing more than properties, appendages, predicates, or attributes of the great whole—nature. One cannot regard the brain as master and spiritual functions as its subordinate servant. No, we, modern materialists, affirm that function is just as much an independent thing as tangible brain substance or any other material thing. And thoughts, their source and their nature are precisely the same real matter and equally worthy object of study as everything else.

We are materialists precisely because we do not make spirit into any "metaphysical" monster. Thinking power is for us just as little a "thing-in-itself" as the force of gravity or a lump of earth. All things are merely links in the great universal connection; it alone is eternal, true, constant; it is not appearance, but the only "thing-in-itself" and absolute truth.

Since we, socialist materialists, possess one concept that binds matter and spirit together, for us the so-called spiritual relations, such as politics, religion, morality and so forth, are also material relations; and we regard material labor, its substances and questions of the belly merely to the extent that the animal precedes the human in time—the basis, presupposition and foundation of all spiritual development, which in no way prevents us from valuing man and his intellect highly.

Socialist materialism is distinguished by the fact that it does not underestimate, like the materialists of the old school, the human spirit, but also does not overestimate it, like the German idealists, but knows measure in its evaluation, regarding mechanism just as much as philosophy with a critical-dialectical view as links in an inseparable world process and world progress...

[218—226] Since we do not agree with the old materialists, who suppose that they have already sufficiently explained what intellect is by calling it a property of the brain, we cannot rid ourselves of our object, the human spirit, at one stroke of the knife. The speculative path, which attempts through mere reasoning to understand the essence of spirit in the internal secretions of the head, cannot be our path, since speculative idealists have achieved far too insignificant results by this means. And so Haeckel very opportunely appears with his view of the correct method of science. He regards the human spirit as it acted historically, and this seems to us a completely correct method...

The first spiritual union *comme il faut*, so Haeckel believes, was Darwin's discovery, published only in 1859, of natural selection in the struggle for existence, but we permit ourselves to hold a different opinion on this matter.

Let the esteemed reader not misunderstand me: we do not wish to dispute that Darwin and Haeckel correctly and scientifically connected their individual spirit with the world of plants and animals and created pure crystals of knowledge, but we merely wish to note that the most recent dialectical materialism stands on the standpoint that Darwin and Haeckel, however great their merit, were not the first and sole ones who succeeded in creating such crystals. The "wretched" museum zoologists and herbarium botanists also left us a particle of genuine science...

Through perception and collection of facts and their description, new light is obtained, or rather, light previously obtained is increased. Darwin's merit is great, but not so boundless that Haeckel has grounds to consider "science" something higher than the everyday union of the human spirit with material facts.

In the first part of the present investigation it was pointed out that limited materialism not only holds that the human spirit is a property of the brain—no one disputes this—but from this connection, directly or indirectly deduces that the predicate of rationality or cognitive capacity attributed to the brain is not a substantial object of investigation, but conversely, the study of material brain is capable of providing sufficient explanation of the properties of spirit.

In opposition to this our dialectical materialism proves that the question should be considered, according to Spinoza's indication, from the perspective of the universe, *sub specie aeternitatis*—from the standpoint of eternity.

In the infinite universe, the matter of the old and now obsolete materialists, tangible matter, obtains not the least right to consider itself more substantial, i.e., more immediate, clear, or determinate, than any other phenomenon of nature...

Those materialists who transform tangible matter into substance and intangible brain function merely into accident greatly diminish this function. In order to obtain a more successful and correct conception of it, it is first of all necessary to return to the fact that these are children of one mother, that these are two phenomena of nature which we illuminate by describing them, subdividing them into classes, species and subspecies.

If we establish concerning matter—which no one, of course, disputes—that it is a phenomenon of nature, and say the same thing concerning the spiritual capacity of man, then we know very little of either; but we know that they are brothers and that no one can excessively separate them from one another; no one can draw between them a distinction *toto genere*, *toto caelo*.

If we wish to learn more, for instance, about matter, we must proceed as museum zoologists and herbarium botanists did in the past; we must learn its various classes, families, species, investigate them, must describe their origin, destruction, and transformation into one another. This is science of matter. Whoever wishes more wishes for too much, does not understand what knowledge is; such a person understands neither the organ of science nor its application. If the old materialists deal with particular species of matter, they proceed entirely scientifically; but when they deal with abstract matter, with its universal concept, they prove utterly helpless in this abstract science. The merit of idealists is that they at least advanced to such a degree the ability to use abstraction and general concepts that the most recent socialist materialism can finally understand that both species of matter and concepts are ordinary products of nature, and there is nothing and cannot be anything that does not belong to the single unlimited category of the natural world.

Our materialism is distinguished by its specifically pronounced acquaintance with the general nature of spirit and matter. When this contemporary materialism makes the human spirit the object of its investigation, it regards it as any other material for investigation, i.e., precisely as museum zoologists, herbarium botanists, and Darwinists proceed in the investigation and description of their objects.

Without doubt, the former by their classification shed light on thousands of species, but this was insufficiently bright light, and Darwin strengthened it to such a degree that this additional illumination overshadowed the beginning; but the old systematists had to "cognize" before they could classify, and therefore Darwin's cognition is nothing other than classification brought under the concept of development, which through the description of natural processes gives a more accurate reflection of the collected facts...

Materialist theory of cognition amounts to the recognition that the human organ of cognition emits no metaphysical light, but is a piece of nature reflecting other pieces of nature, whose creative essence is clarified by our description of it. Such description requires of the theorist of cognition, or philosopher, that he regard his object precisely as a zoologist regards the animal he studies. But if someone reproaches me for why I do not do this immediately myself, one must not forget that Rome was not built in a day.

It is remarkable that these enlightened natural scientists, who understand so well that the eternal motion of nature through adaptation, heredity, natural selection, struggle for existence, etc. created elephants and apes from protoplasm and mollusks, cannot understand that spirit developed in precisely the same way. Why could it not happen to reason what happened to bones?...

Just as the museum zoologist studied his animals through description of class, species, and family according to which they are distributed, so the human spirit must be investigated through the study of different species of this spirit. Each individual possesses his own particular intellect, and all intellects together can be regarded as branches of one general spirit. Partly this general human spirit, like the personal, has its development in the past, partly in the future; it has undergone various, manifold metamorphoses, and if, having traced them, we reach the beginning of the human race, we shall approach that stage where the divine spark falls to the degree of animal instinct. Having become animal, the human spirit thus becomes a bridge to the actual animal spirits, and thus we arrive at the spirit of plants, trees and mountains. This means: we thus arrive at the understanding that between spirit and matter, as between all parts of the universal unity of nature, there exist gradual transitions and vanishing differences only in degree, but not metaphysical difference.

Since the old materialism did not understand these facts, since it could not understand matter and spirit as abstract images of concrete phenomena and, despite its religious free-thinking and low valuation of divine spirit, did not know whence and how natural spirit arose, and because of this ignorance could in no way overcome metaphysics—Friedrich Engels called this helpless, incapable materialism, unable to master abstract science, metaphysical, and the materialism of social-democracy, which thanks to the preceding German idealism passed through a better school—dialectical.

From the standpoint of this materialism, spirit is a collective name for spiritual phenomena, precisely as matter is a collective name for material phenomena, and both together form one concept and are called by one name—phenomena of nature. This is a new epistemological mode of thinking which penetrates all individual sciences, all individual thoughts and establishes the proposition that all things in the world must be regarded *sub specie aeternitatis*, from the standpoint of the universe. This eternal universe is so fused with its temporal phenomena that all eternity is temporal, and all temporal things are eternal.

And the substantialist mode of thinking of social-democracy sheds new light on this problem, over the solution of which idealism so struggled, posing the question: wherein lies true thinking, how to distinguish subjective thoughts from objective? The answer is thus: one must not make excessive distinctions; and the very best representation and the truest thought can only give an image of universal multiplicity which exists in you and outside you. To distinguish real pictures from fantastic ones is not at all so difficult, and every artist will be able to do this with the greatest precision. Fantastic representations are taken from reality, and the most accurate representations of reality are of necessity animated by the breath of fantasy. Accurate representations and concepts render us great services precisely because they possess not ideal accuracy but only relative accuracy.

Our thoughts cannot and should not "coincide" with their objects in the exaggerated metaphysical sense of the word. We wish, must, and can obtain only an approximate idea of reality. Therefore reality can only approach our ideals. Outside of idea there exists neither mathematical points nor mathematical straight lines. All straight lines in reality possess full of contradictions curvature, precisely as the highest justice is still closely bound with injustice. The nature of truth is not ideal but substantial; it is materialistic; it is grasped not by thought but by eyes, ears and hands; it is not a product of thought, but rather the contrary: thought is a product of universal life. The living universe—this is embodied truth.

IV

DARWIN AND HEGEL

[226—233] By this we wish to point out that philosophy and natural science are not at all so far removed from one another. The human spirit works in both domains according to one and the same method. The natural-scientific method is more precise, but only in degree, not in essence...

We willingly acknowledge for the almost forgotten Hegel the honor of being Darwin's predecessor. Lessing in his time called Spinoza a "dead dog." Precisely thus has Hegel outlived his time at present, despite the fact that in his time, according to his biographer Haym, he enjoyed in the literary world such weight as Napoleon I in the political. Spinoza...